- "I loved it. A great ending. You wove it together beautifully."
- Adam B., Colorado
Media reviews
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On April 13, 2012, I launched The Lebanon Voice, an onlilne newspaper that serves my hometown of Lebanon, Maine, and neighboring town of Milton, N.H.
Along with my president, partner and soul mate, Martha Soto-Galicia, the newspaper strives to maintain the highest code of journalistic ethics possible, while reporting news and government events evenly and objectively.
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Freak the News author Harrison Thorp talks to Boothbay Harbor Book Fair attendees about his book during this summer's event in Boothbay. More than 50 books were sold during the three-hour show.
Hot fun in the summertime
REVIEWS FROM AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE:
- "The goings on of a small town and its paper. Corruption and deceit between government, big business and the fifth estate. A look into the bowels of journalism and the power it can wield over its citizens ... a must read for the conspiracy enthusiasts. Exciting climax and the delightful affirmation of Karma."
- Martha S., Florida
- "Sex, money, scandal, and greed. Who could ask for more? As a former journalist I absolutely love Freak the News. The author takes you behind the scenes of a small town paper where things aren't exactly what they seem. The story is racy and exciting. I had an idea where the book was heading but the ending was even better than I expected! The author wraps things up nicely. I loved the whole David vs. Goliath aspect of the book."
- A. Wins
- Memorable characters enliven a nicely crafted look at small town life and capture a tradition of backwater journalism where hard-core newsmen fight their own demons as well as town power. This is an entertaining page-turner complete with action, sleaze, and honor in the face of temptation. An absorbing tale of journalism's calling to unearth and report the news in the face of those ready to subvert that moral imperative. Well worth the read!
- Betsy B.
Hear what the critics are shouting about Freak the News!!!
Freak the News is “a coarse, profane, funny and unvarnished indictment of one newspaper's decline from honored objectivity to simple, greedy pandering.”
Kennebec Journal
“This is a tightly wrapped story, loaded with colorful characters, snappy dialogue and taut suspense, but its real strength is its vivid portrayal of the chaos of a newsroom making deadline every day, amid insidious corporate corruption, Byzantine office politics, and the wacky antics of men and women who survive the newspaper grind on alcohol, bad coffee and sick jokes.”
The New Maine Times
Freak the News is “an exciting and hilarious tale of mystery, suspense and insight into what really goes on in the newsroom of a fictional Maine newspaper well-known for its unabashed manipulation of the news, the bawdy behavior and macabre humor of its staff, its frequent misspellings, grammar errors and comic malaprops, and often deliberately saucy headlines.”
Cntrl. Maine Morning Sentinel
Freak the News is a page-turner and the novel’s cast of characters are “well-developed, snarky, rude, pleasant, and above all, human.”
Journal Tribune of Biddeford
That's gold, Jerry!
'Frontline' Murdoch expose
feeds Freak the News frenzy
If anyone wanted to gain insight into the workings of the mind of W.D. Drummond, the archvillain of Freak the News, they need only to follow the fall of Rupert Murdoch and the demise of his once-unassailable media empire.
Ruthless, arrogant, full of haughty disdain for his underlings and enemies. Yet the hubris that so ofen accompanies these megalomaniacs finally provoked his undoing.
In thinking he could circumvent all laws and common standards of journalistic ethics by paying off cops and politicians, Murdoch finally lost all concept of what is right and wrong, and replaced it with what is expedient.
His fall from grace is well chronicled in PBS' fine Frontline special, which can be seen in its entirety online.
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